March 2021 Newsletter

The Moscow United Methodist Church 126 Church St Office Phone: (570)842-7251 Moscow, PA 18444 e-newsletter March 2021 Pastor’s Letter “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” Matthew 6:1 We are midway through the season of Lent. It is time to truthfully check in with ourselves regarding how each of us is doing with what we might have given up for or vowed to improve on for Lent in the spirit of self-sacrifice to spend more time in devotion to our Lord. How is your intimate walk with Jesus progressing as with each new day we draw closer to the cross of suffering sacrifice where the dark confinement of sin met the light of passion for humanity? Is everyone feeling closer to God and ready to personally celebrate salvation on Easter like never before? If in evaluating the efforts of soul cleansing and quest for inner purification in preparation for the empty tomb which fills us with the hope of everlasting life, anyone is thinking they aren’t remaining faithful to the plan of self-surrender for the Lenten venture, try again. Start over, start fresh today as the season continues. During this holy season, we are to also recall the feelings Jesus had making his way to be crucified for our sins. How hard that must have been. If Jesus could make it through the events of Holy Week, carry his own cross, and give all of himself, we too can make it through the sacrifices and challenges we encounter, in the same manner Jesus did – by fully trusting in God’s power.

Now is the time to repent, turn from the tempting transgressions around us and return to our loving God. Fully open up, be real and ready for the Good News of the resurrection! Think of the liberating feeling and peaceful lighthearted days we can enjoy by ridding ourselves and others of the dark clouds to let the plentiful, glorious SON shine upon us. THE RAKs CHALLENGE….LIVE LENT IN A NEW WAY We are continuing to move through a historic period of a global pandemic. It too is a period of unrest. In some instances, there is an atmosphere of fear, doubt, and the unknown. The world needs to sense God’s presence more and hope in the divine love that bonds us - the selfless, non judgmental, unconditional, and harmonious love of Jesus Christ. The Lenten season brings with it an opportunity to intentionally live in love. By surrendering self and being completely Spirit led, imagine the possibilities we can create allowing faith focus and positivity to happen. In turn, the ultimate love which unites and binds us one to the other can bring about calm assurance as it is experienced. How can we accomplish this? We can try by actively revealing where our treasure is, in humble actions and interactions. The traditional Ash Wednesday gospel reading centers on engaging in spiritual disciplines to make a positive difference for others and ourselves without seeking worldly praise, acting that only the Lord knows what we do. So, for the remainder of these 40 days of Lent, let’s partake more in the twist on the give up, serve more tradition to “Live Lent” empowered by the Holy Spirit engaging in the RAKs (Random Acts of Kindness) Challenge. Each day, cultivate kindness and generosity, hope and peace, smiles and happiness that cause renewed unity through spontaneous, uplifting moments. Be creative, be inspired as you

inspire others. It promises to produce a blessed Lenten season that will increase your treasure filling your heart with the genuine holiness of Jesus. May we start a fresh trend of spreading pre-Easter joy in accepting the challenge to bring about Lenten RAKs. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:21 Take a deep breath, spend time in prayer, then embark on the final weeks until we breathe in the promise of heaven as Easter arrives. Surrender all to the Lord to be empowered with the endless source of strength needed to guarantee victory here and hereafter. All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, yet there is another chance to get things right, living spiritually holy and healthy. In Jesus, there is pardon. In believing, we can have it all! Praise be to God! HOLY WEEK SERVICE INFORMATION Holy Week services and Easter worship services are TBD (To Be Determined), according to what the state of the pandemic is. Specifics will be announced the week before Holy Week begins. Worship WILL happen, as nothing shall ever stop the church from praising our Lord, especially during Holy Week and on Resurrection Day. The details only have yet to be fully decided upon for the safety and security of all. Please watch your church email and our social media for more information.

The North Pocono Ministerium continues to host weekly community virtual Lenten worship services. The services are recorded each week from a different area church and are released at noon on Thursdays. Next week the service will be coming from the Maple Lake UMC and the last service will be from here at the Moscow UMC. CHRISTIAN CONNECTIONS Christian Connections short term virtual Bible study meets on Tuesday evenings, through March 30th, 6:15-7:30. This discussion group is currently focusing on the events of Holy Week and the encounters Jesus endured during his final steps to the cross. One cannot celebrate the joyous victory of Easter to completeness without feeling the depth of the pain and passion of Jesus. Everyone is encouraged to join in this spiritual opportunity to strengthen self preparations for Easter and share with fellow Christians in questions of faith and being faithful. DONATION STATION

Each month we will be collecting for a different cause. Donation bins as well as a list of requested items will be located in the Narthex. You can drop donations off during office hours that are posted weekly, or during the Sunday worship service. If you need to make other arrangements, please email [email protected] and we will work with you to get your donations. In March we will be collecting for St. Mary’s Villa. If you would like to order items and have them shipped to the church please email [email protected] with a tracking number and/or an estimated arrival date so we know when to expect the package. Requested items: Spring themed fleece blankets, word puzzle books, adult coloring books, colored pencils, scented lotions, prepackaged snacks (regular and Easter themed). We have already received many donations for St. Mary’s Villa, which we are incredibly thankful for. We are so blessed to be part of such a generous community. Any donation, big or small, is greatly appreciated.

POWER OF PRAYER NETWORK And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Ephesians 6:18

The Power of Prayer network is now fully established and ready to increase our connection with God. The network is led by Cis Lyon. If you have any prayer requests please contact Cis, Pastor Lori, or Jennie in the office. If you would like a copy of the Prayer Network please email [email protected]. Carole 570-842- 570-842- Paulette 570-881- 570-689- Burnett 7481 7415 Fotta Cis Lyon 5170 Lois Linko 9808 ↓ ↓ Dawn 570-842- ↓ 570-842- Carol 570-842- ↓ 570-842- Biesecker 7383 Diane Croom 8805 Reuther 9383 Muriel 7738 Smailes ↓ ↓ Linda 570-842- ↓ 570-842- Irene 570-848- ↓ 570-842- Wright 2547 Beth Czulada 8804 Deemer 7198 Lorie 7413 Reigal ↓ ↓ Nancy ↓ Gayle ↓ Schwenk Simpkins Audrey 570-842- 570-575- 570-878- Pierre 570-842- ↓ ↓ 8312 7535 Sharon 2495 JoAnne Winters 5676 Bonnie Delucy Pastore 570-842- ↓ 570-842- 570-842- ↓ 570-689- ↓ 3975 Vicki Herman 3363 ↓ 9148 Carole 2067 Karen Donna Phillips Kobeski Tucker 570-842- ↓ 570-842- 570-842- ↓ 570-689- ↓ 7220 Barbara 9372 ↓ 7542 Lois Linko 9808 Carol Havenstrite Donna Burnett Mela 570-842- ↓ 570-954- 570-702- 7481 Consuelo 0786 ↓ 5201 Paulette Brown Fotta ↓ 570-872- 570-881- Cis Lyon 7415 5170

SUNDAY SCHOOL Sunday School is going well, we continue to send packets every week that include a story from the Bible, a craft, and a song. Each week the lesson is recorded for those who cannot attend the virtual class Sunday morning at 9AM. During our virtual class we talk about the story, make the craft together, sing along with the song, and discuss our weekly gratitude for our Gratitude Jar. We are also very excited to announce we have a new student in our class. If anyone else would like to join our Sunday School, please email [email protected] or [email protected].

LEARNING TREE PRESCHOOL We will begin March celebrating the National Education Association’s “Read Across America”. We will continue letter recognition and letter sounds with Preschool, and letter recognition, letter sounds, beginning sounds, letter segmenting of three letter words, and rhyming with our Pre-K class. Our themes for the month are, Meet an Illustrator, Animal Eggs, The 5 Senses in Spring, and Spring Weather. This month we will be focusing on writing the uppercase letters F, E, D, A, I, T, J, C, O, Q, G, S, V. We will focus on writing and counting the numbers 1-4.

FINANCE REPORT Following is the financial information from the month of February. So far, we have been able to pay Ministry Shares in January and February. Praise be to God! We are blessed in your faithful fulfillment of providing through tithes and offerings, assuring we are uninterrupted in reaching out and keeping the facilities’ bills paid to date. A Lenten thought for giving…our Lord revealed his limitless love for the world in Jesus’ self-offering on the cross. As we prayerfully present tithes and offerings, via worship collections, sending them in to the office, through EFT, or Pay Pal on the church website - we do so for the betterment of God’s created world, for those who suffer lost in the unfortunate upsets from the false knowledge of the weakness of humanity that sadly often chooses the love of power over the power of love, for those yearning for divine deliverance in merciful grace. May we continue to contribute with consistency in the spirit of Christianity with grateful hearts from the abundant provisions we have been given in finance and resources. Let us be ever mindful that in giving, we reveal the hope and peace that only God can bestow through our actions. May the weak be made strong, feel empowered in adoration through our church’s ministries made possible from our generosity united. $8,402 Balance Feb. 1 $7,272 Income $11,488 Expenses $4,186 Balance Feb. 28

FOOD DRIVE Our Donation Station collection in February was for the North Pocono Food Pantry and Dry Goods Pantry. We would like to thank our very generous community for making the collection a success. We ended the collection with a drive through donation drive, which was also a big success, we were able to fill a minivan with all the donations from the food drive. We are always accepting donations for the Food Pantry and Dry Goods Pantry, the boxes are located in the coat room between the Narthex and the Sanctuary.

CONFIRMATION 2021 The confirmation class is moving right along and has been active in learning much about the foundations of faith and what we believe in as Christians. Next, we will move on to learning and growing in the Spirit covering the foundations of and what we believe in as United Methodists. All classes thus far have been virtual. We are hoping to meet in person very soon. The class has nine confirmands. They discussed and chose two different mission projects. They will be serving at the Food Pantry, helping God’s people, as well as, going out to clean up litter, caring for God’s creation. It will be great to move onto more interactive learning about the workings of our MUMC and discovering all the symbolism of the Lord throughout the church building, mainly in the holiness of the sanctuary. Please pray for the confirmation class as they journey on together in becoming members. The class invites the congregation to unite with them in the Lenten RAKs Challenge! They look forward to hearing from their church family and examples of faith, the new and motivating God moments created through your RAKs. Please share your Random Acts of Kindness on the church website to support the class in this special project. This Photo by Unknown Author is

EASTER FLOWERS If anyone would like to purchase Easter flowers for the altar, you can fill out an order form located on the table in the Narthex. You can also reach out to Lois Linko at (570)407-3509. The flowers available for purchase are Lilies, Hyacinths, or Tulips for $12 each. The deadline for ordering is March 25th. DEVOTIONAL CALENDAR Questions to ponder with daily devotions: What is this scripture revealing to you? How does this reading express the relationship you have with the Lord? What emotions and deep meaning do you feel in reference to this scripture? How does this reading reflect he biblical time in which it was first experienced? How do these verses reflect and speak to current society? How are you able to live the verses out as you move through the day? How is the church able to share the message of and breathe life into this reading?

COVID VACCINE If anyone is interested in scheduling an appointment to receive the vaccine for Covid-19, here are a few phone numbers you can call: Rite Aid General Vaccine Appointment: 1-866-674-4659 Rite Aid Mount Pocono: (570)839-3797

If you have questions about the vaccine here are some resources (you can also contact the church office if you would like physical copies of some of the information or specific questions and we will do our best to get you the best information) https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown- health/featured-topic/covid-19-vaccine-myths-debunked https://health.ucdavis.edu/health-news/newsroom/the-real-facts- about-common-covid-19-vaccine-myths/2020/12 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully- vaccinated.html